Smallpox, Suffrage, and Statistics

The year 1893 started with such promise for the city of Chicago. From May through October, the World Columbian Exposition drew people from all over the world to see the life-size reproductions of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria; the 200 gleaming white buildings that inspired Katharine Lee Bates’ lyrics for America the Beautiful; the first Ferris wheel, electric sidewalk, and movie theater; pavilions from 46 countries, 34 states and 4 U.S. territories; and numerous other wonders. Attendance exceeded 25 million, an astounding figure considering that the total U.S. population in 1890 was less than 63 million.

The marvels of the Exposition were not enjoyed by the Chicagoans who labored long hours in the sweatshops about seven miles to the north. But they did share in the smallpox epidemic that is thought to have originated in the Exposition. And they shared in the unemployment and economic misery from the Panic of 1893.

Enter Florence Kelley, the state factory inspector (and the first woman to hold statewide office in Illinois), who in 1894 instituted a system of contact tracing to try to control the spread of the disease in the garment district. Kelley and her fellow Hull House residents used statistics to improve the lives of workers, argue for child labor laws, and fight for women’s suffrage. In 1895, Kelley and Agnes Sinclair Holbrook displayed the economic condition of neighborhood residents in some of the most sophisticated statistical graphics published at the time, in the Hull House Maps and Papers.

Check out the latest Stats + Stories podcast on “The Women of Hull House,” in which John Bailer, Richard Campbell, Rosemary Pennington, and I discuss these Hull House residents’ contributions to the field of statistics in the 1890s. You can also read about their contributions in my series commemorating the 125th anniversary of Hull House Maps and Papers.

Sharon LohrNovember 25, 2020